What’s Ahead for Community Newspapers?

King Features Weekly Service has been in the features business for a long time — since the 1980s — and our parent organization, King Features Syndicate, has been at this a LOT longer — back to around 1900.

So we think we know how to create features that are compelling, wide-ranging, reader-friendly and cost-effective.

Yet as the newspapering evolves quickly into a digital future, the deep foundation of our features enterprise is, like all of you, feeling the pinch of challenge.

People consume information differently on the Internet. What worked so well in print is much less defined online.

We are putting new effort into providing digital features for you in a way that works more seamlessly with your web publication.

At the same time, we’re looking at developing other resources which may prove of value to you in this rapidly changing media landscape.

We’re not sure what that might be. A good degree of re-invention seems necessary. We may consider strategic partnerships to provide you a wider benefit.

We really would like to hear from you as we move forward. While we may well understand the traditional needs of community newspapers, we are just learning how to ask the right questions about where the industry is headed.

Such understanding can only come through conversation, so our first priority is to open those channels. We’ll be using our blog and social media channels a lot more. We will invite guest bloggers in the industry, both from the supplier and newspaper sides. Our challenges are widespread, so our solutions need to come from an equally wide base.

Also, if you’d like to discuss these things one-on-one, please contact me at dcohea@hearstsc.com.

— David Cohea